Cunard Queen Mary 2

The alternative dining Verandah restaurants on the Cunard cruise ships offer contemporary French cuisine. I had the opportunity to dine in the Verandah on both the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary 2 and compare the fine dining experience.

In an earlier conversation with the Queen Elizabeth’s Executive Chef, Mark Holroyd, he talked about Cunard's objective to provide a consistency for food and dining services across the three ships. The excellent quality of service and the ambience of quiet elegance were certainly consistent features of both restaurants.

My phone rang as I was getting ready to go down for the early dinner seating in Britannia dining room. It was the Captain’s secretary inviting me to join the Captain's table for dinner at 8:30. Another new experience. I thanked her for the invitation and said I would be there.

Between unpacking and waiting for the Emergency Drill on embarkation day, I took a quick walk from D at the aft of the ship (my preferred location actually) to the A stairs. The Queen Mary is so long it is almost 300 steps. My fit-bit loves this life on board. She sends me congratulatory messages when I reach 10,000 steps and then tells me I am an overachiever when I am 6,000 steps over that. Guess I should re-define my goals.

This transatlantic leg of my Southampton-Baltics-New York dance cruise is the first time I am cruising as a solo traveller. All my previous dance cruises have been part of a group of dancers or with a dance partner. So when readers of my travelblogues have emailed me to ask how the onboard dancing is for people traveling alone, I have not really been able to answer from personal experience.